First of all, I’d like to thank all the researchers and beekeepers that have put in decades of work to help us understand better the world of bees and beekeeping. And there's a whole lot more to learn ahead of us. While beekeepers try to optimize and have success with honey bees for whatever goal we have, it's up to us to lead into the next generation of beekeeping.
Personally I've been beekeeping for a handful of years, and I expect to do this as long as possible, or physically allowed. As a beekeeper I’ll always have an evolving path for growth and experience. I've had many successes with my hives, but I've also had failures. Hive losses have become an expected part of beekeeping. Some years I've ranged from 25-40% hive gross losses. Fortunately, they're usually made up with requeening, hive splits, and swarm captures. I’ve raised survivor stock year after year, but that was a small hobby and ended selling my hives only to buy more. The survivor stock always comes through and makes up for the rest. I strive to decrease the amount of hive losses that occur every year. There are factors that affect our hive losses. The number one is varroa mites. They spread disease and weaken hives, ultimately killing the hive.
So how do we optimize our own beekeeping practices? Well, there are tons of research articles and practices. Before diving into this, I’m not endorsing products or practices. There are many recommendations and proven techniques, so it's up to you to make your mind on how you would like to approach your path to becoming an experienced beekeeper, and perhaps help others along the way.
Usually, honeybees are able to acquire all of their dietary needs from available flowers or stored resources in the hive. Under normal circumstances, bees are able to forage and store enough pollen and honey to provide for their nutritional needs throughout the year.[1] Why do anything at all to the bees? Don’t they already take care of themselves in the wild?
Well, my friend, we don't live in the wild or own undeveloped, undisturbed land with thousands of acres of prime natural resources readily available to us. Not only that, we have taken honey bees from their natural environment and placed them into hive boxes.
Tom Seeley talks about ‘Darwinian Beekeeping’, and mentions Darwin’s Black Bee Box where natural selection is allowed to take place without interference. Natural selection is a very fascinating subject with honey bees. Though it may work for a hobbyist, it will not work for a sideliner or commercial beekeeper.
Once we start spending more time and money on beekeeping, one question to ask yourself could be. What’s your purpose with your hives? If your purpose is to harvest honey from your hive or do hive splits, then you're counting on having a good nectar flow in your area, that means having enough resources for your bees to forage and produce excess honey from their hard work they put in, that means you need to have a strong hive going into the nectar flow season, that means your hive needs to not swarm right before that nectar flow starts. Among other things, that means being prepared for it.
Supplemental feeding during nectar dearth has been a part of my feeding regimen, which I intend to keep on doing. Why? Because natural resources are not optimal throughout the year for bees to thrive season after season. Sometimes you may get a drought, really hot summer, or some natural disaster that can have a domino effect, honey bees end up having the short end of the stick. This equals poor nutrition.
Furthermore, honey bees require carbohydrates (sugars in nectar or honey), amino acids (protein from pollen), lipids (fatty acids, sterols), vitamins, minerals (salts), and water. Additionally, these nutrients must be present in the right ratio for honey bees to survive and thrive.[2] What do you mean by the right ratio? Many studies have shown poly-floral pollen diets are superior to a single species of pollen, this factors into the health and longevity of the honey bee. If this ratio is off balance and their food source is poor, honey bees will underperform.
What if your hive is not strong enough? By strong I mean having about 40-60 thousand bees in your hive. A weak hive would be about 10 thousand bees, this is about 3 frames of bees in your hive. To help out the weak hives to get ready for the spring nectar flow. You will need to start taking measures. Six to eight weeks beforehand, they need supplemental feed, (e.g. pollen patties, sugar water syrup). You can do research on how to make your own or buy it ready made to feed your bees. Pollen provides the only natural protein source for bees. They need quantity and quality to raise their young and become healthy fat bees. Feeding supplemental patties early in the season will stimulate them to start raising young, because the natural pollen they otherwise would be foraging is not necessarily available. There must be discipline in this, a regular visit to check on your bees is necessary to keep on feeding them, and making sure they don’t swarm off right before nectar flow starts, otherwise their brood production will stall. Put in the time to do your own research!
Nectar flows stimulate hygienic behavior.[3] It’s also important to be able to nip the varroa mite population from growing along with your bees. Seasonally in a trend of time, the mite population tends to have a rising curve right after the curve of brood increases during nectar flow. This is because they feed on the brood, adult bees, and reproduce inside the capped cells during the brood rearing period. In other words, the mite population increases after the brood population increases if left untreated. The hygienic behavior of bees is best when they're at full strength hive. Healthy colonies groom themselves, remove dead and dying adults. They employ nature’s resources and they use propolis. It helps keep a clean hive, and kill foreign bacteria. Due to its waxy nature and mechanical properties, bees use propolis in the construction and repair of their hives for sealing openings and cracks, smoothing out the internal walls, use as a protective barrier against external invaders like snakes, lizards, and so on, and against weathering threats like wind and rain.[4]
In order to optimize a honey bee colony at full strength as beekeepers we would need to take necessary measures. Pollen patties and sugar water syrup are a good source of help, as well as treating your hives for mites. A weak colony will need a boost. Their chance of survival dramatically decreases if there are very few natural resources available to them. Therefore supplemental feeding is necessary in order to give the weak hive a fighting chance. There are other factors to consider as stated before. Being prepared for the nectar flow season requires investing time and resources to follow through in keeping your hive strong and alive.
[1] https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/18/36/ad/0755bd1756238e/US20120308686A1.pdf
[2] https://bee-health.extension.org/honey-bee-nutrition/
[3] https://www.bvbeeks.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Fat-Bees-Skinny-Bees.pdf
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3872021/